Is GM Going To Build A Self-driving Car In Partnership With Google?

According to comments made to Bloomberg Business by General Motors’ head of product development, a partnership between the automaker and Google may be in the future of its self-driving car technology development.

Bloomberg’s story was centered largely on Cadillac’s semi-autonomous Super Cruise system, which uses sensors and cameras to make adjustments to speed and steering without any input from the driver, which reduces reliance on humans in traffic and on long stretches of highway.

GM product development chief Mark Reuss told Bloomberg that a partnership between the two companies could prove greatly beneficial. He discussed the strengths and weaknesses of both Google and GM with regard to the future of automobiles, and talked about the possibility of working together.

A future partnership between GM and Google wouldn’t be the first, as Google’s Android Auto smartphone connectivity is now offered on a variety of General Motors vehicles for the 2016 model year. “I love working with them,” said Reuss. “I think they feel the same way. We make cars, we know how to make cars. They’ve got great technical capabilities. We are very interested in how those two might work together.”

However, the article also noted that Reuss has actually expressed very different feelings about Google in the past, even as recently as a few months ago when he called the tech giant “a very serious competitive threat.”

Google declined to comment on any specific upcoming partnership with GM, however, a representative for the tech company did point to a Wall Street Journal article from September where Google mentions that it “doesn’t plan to manufacture its own cars and wants to partner with others to develop the technology.”

Perhaps this partnership will be announced at some point in the future, with the possibility that it could lead to the development of the first fully self-driving cars that are available commercially. Of course, a collaboration of this type would be competing with the multitude of auto and tech companies that are currently working on autonomous vehicle technology, including Tesla, Volvo, Daimler, and many others, maybe even including Apple. We’ll be watching for additional information as this story unfolds in the coming period.